Design agency Birdwere tasked with a brief to create an alternative to a gold disc for Jimmy Iovine, to give thanks for his many years of service and record sales of 92,000,000. Jimmy Iovine is the co-founder of Beats, partnered with rap icon Dr. Dre, they produce audio products and created the music streaming service Beats Music.

Working with the company name and underlying structure of “the Beat”, Bird came up with the concept of customising an iconic Metronome. They took a classical wooden Pyramid Metronome to customise and designed outer packaging – making it uniquely Beats.

On the front of the Metronome, Nirvana applied the Beats logo which was machined and metalised with a chrome finish and inset into the mahogany face. Inside the Metronome, the weight was removed and replaced with a chrome and enamel Beats weight, then we replaced the tempo plate with a stainless steel plate with the message applied as a silver transfer. The metronome was then housed in a rigiddrawer box, the slipcase and draw were lined with a Morocco embossed red colour-plan and the inners were lined with a high gloss black. The logo was then embossed in a gloss black foil onto the front face of the rigid box.

In total, the piece was an exclusive one off that beats a gold disc hands down. The client was overjoyed with the end result.